NASCAR Cup

Kansas: Kenseth - Ford Saturday interview

Matt Kenseth, driver of the No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion, put up the third-fastest lap during the first practice at Kansas Speedway on Saturday. Kenseth's third-place showing at Dover last Sunday was his best finish since opening the 2009 season with ...

Edited: Oct 8, 2009, 2:27 AM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Matt Kenseth, driver of the No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion, put up the third-fastest lap during the first practice at Kansas Speedway on Saturday. Kenseth's third-place showing at Dover last Sunday was his best finish since opening the 2009 season with back-to-back victories at Daytona and Fontana. The 2003 series champion has two top-five finishes at Kansas and is second among laps led in the track's history with 183.

MATT KENSETH -- No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion

ARE THE THIRD-PLACE FINISH AT DOVER LAST WEEK AND THE THIRD-FASTEST TIME IN PRACTICE THIS MORNING ACCURATE INDICATORS OF THIS TEAM'S RECENT PERFORMANCE? "Practice times, often, are who gets out first and who gets a good lap -- the fast lap on the sheet isn't always a real good indicator of what's going to happen tomorrow. But, our car did have good speed the whole practice. I'm pretty happy with it. We seem to have found some stuff that seems to be running faster and a little bit better, but I think we have a ways to go to drive good and be competitive for 400 miles."

IS THE PERFORMANCE STARTING TO MOVE BACK TO WHERE THIS TEAM EXPECTS IT? "It's hard to say in one week. Richmond and New Hampshire were two of our worst weeks in the entire season -- performance on the race track, on pit road, getting the car to run fast, me going through a pit box -- the whole thing has been terrible. So, last week was a very good, solid week for us, but it's only one week so I can't really answer that until we get a few more weeks down the road."

NEXT WEEK THE RACE IS IN FONTANA, WHERE YOU WON IN FEBRUARY. DOES THAT RACE EVEN SEEM LIKE IT WAS DURING THIS SEASON, OR DOES IT SEEM LIKE IT WAS A LONG, LONG TIME AGO? "Yes and no. I doesn't really mean much to me today because we went to Michigan, which historically has been one of our best tracks and both races we did terrible -- I think we finished in the 20s both races -- so past success doesn't really mean much for what's going on today, it seems like. So, we've just got to get our cars going in the right direction. You know, if we could get a good run this weekend, that would probably make us feel better about next week."

-credit: ford racing

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Kansas: Bobby Labonte qualifying report

Next article Kansas: Race results

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Joe Gibbs Racing moves to resolve one portion of Spire countersuit

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup 4 h

Joe Gibbs Racing moves to resolve one portion of Spire countersuit

Alex Bowman hits out at critics in snarky post, shooting down early exit rumors

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Homestead-Miami

13 h

Alex Bowman hits out at critics in snarky post, shooting down early exit rumors

Ryan Blaney gets sweet redemption after 'nightmares' following 2024 Homestead loss

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Homestead-Miami

14 h

Ryan Blaney gets sweet redemption after 'nightmares' following 2024 Homestead loss

IndyCar 2026 season review: Dale Coyne Racing

IndyCar

Indy IndyCar 14 h

IndyCar 2026 season review: Dale Coyne Racing

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts